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Chismos18
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Country: United States
State: Michigan
Metro: Ann Arbor
Birthday: 2/15/1985
Gender: Female
Interests: writing, drawing, short stories, cooking, sketching, digital art, movies, classic pop culture, music, random info, reading, genetics, Biology, spirituality, stuff, español, portugués, pediatrics, jazz, salsa, bossa nova, funk, R&B, activist music, classic rock, classical, electric bass
Expertise: Currently, I tag and tail mice...digest the tails...eyebleed them, spin their blood to get their plasma...and then scan their body fat percentage.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Medical
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  Chismos18
Member Since:
10/18/2002
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| Hey guys. Once again, time for my very rare updates! I laugh when I look at the entry from back at the beginning of the year...one, because I know that in a couple of years it will be funny how clueless I was about everything. Another reason is because I've learned so much in the last three months, it's insane. Right now, I'm in my anatomy class, and I'm reading about the muscles in the anterior compartment of the thigh, which include the iliopsoas from the pelvis, the quadriceps femoris (vastus medalis, vastus intermedius, vastus lateralis and the rectus femoris muscles). I started falling asleep, so I'm taking a break and I remembered that I had a xanga. So hi! How has it been here? Crazy! I played clarinet for the second year show...the 101st annual. It will take me a few days to get those songs unstuck from my head. I saw the show three times, so I know parts of it by heart, much to my chagrin. It's like, no, I need to clear that space in my mind for cranial nerves. I've overbooked myself, but that's alright. Being busy keeps me going, and gives me a lot of time to procrastinate when I really should be doing other things.  I'm writing a novel for National Novel Writer's Month as well. This is what is insane...I'm trying to write 50,000 words before November 30. I am over halway through, but I have to do a lot of writing, probably tonight, to catch up to where I'm supposed to be...I should be right about at 30,000 words now, and I have 27,000. What is it about? It's about a Muslim woman, Nisreen, and how her life views are changed by her interaction with a man named Mo, Mo's fixation on a chick named Desiree, and how Desiree and Mo happened in the first place...with a twist. I hope it's not too obvious. My favorite peripheral characters in that story are Desiree's friend Ameerah and later (I haven't gotten to that part yet), Mo's sister Samar. Also Nisreen's cousin Aziza, who may become a narrator in a later edited version of the story. Here's the excerpt that's currently up on my NaNoWriMo page: "He quickly becomes bored with MTV and turns the television to Food Network. Instantly, he feels guilty. He’s taking advantage of Nisreen’s kindness and charity right now. Mo realizes that he has this habit, in several forms, of taking advantage of girls, especially when he was feeling like shit. They all take pity on Shitty Mo, he thinks, and end up going out of their way to cheer him up. He’d broken a few hearts that way, and may be in the process of breaking another. He remembers this. He can’t go home now, but he has to be careful with Nisreen. She seems cool, but she used to hang with a crowd of sisters who would take a salaam and turn it into a pending marriage proposal. "No, he’s not taking advantage of Nisreen, Mo resolves. She’s offered to help him, she’s willing, and that’s what fellow Muslims do for each other anyway, right? That’s what fellow human beings do for each other, she would say. We help each other out. She’s helping, alright, Mo says to himself. Nisreen’s helping him forget… "…how she’s whispering in his ear right now, in between giggles, daydreaming and I’m thinking of you, daydreaming and I’m thinking of you. She’s never far from his mind. She likes to rub her face on his when he has stubble. That’s the way a man’s supposed to be, she tells him. He’s supposed to have hair on his face. Her cheek is so soft in comparison. Daydreaming and I’m thinking of you, I’m thinking of you, Desirée, how it felt the first time you willingly wrapped your legs around me and let me daydreaming and I’m thinking of the time you developed your signal, our signal, that subtle kiss off-center on the bridge of my nose, your eyes leading me exactly where you wanted me to hey baby, let’s get away, let’s go somewhere, oww, baby can we return to your room, to that spot where you told me you loved me and I believed it. Daydreaming and I’m inside of you, Desirée. Indivisible, and there’s no turning back. And you can’t get away, let’s go somewhere, oww, baby can we keep this going? Daydreaming and this is love, Desirée." (15 cool points if you know who wrote the song referenced in the portion of the story in italics...no cheating.) So that's my life right now. I have two and a half hours before I'm walking over with Akochi to Northeastern to have this Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of premeds there and do a little bit of advising on the side...don't think I'll stay all three hours, but it should be good to meet some undergrads. I don't plan on pigging out. I lost 10 pounds this semester from Ramadan and gaining it back is not an option! | | |
| Hello anybody who still reads this!
Once again, time for the live update. Live because...yes, I'm still alive.
Yesterday was my white coat ceremony. And, like many of my classmates, I took the opportunity to immediately upload a picture of myself in my white coat as my profile picture. Unless I take a cute picture in the next few weeks, there it will remain for much of first year.
It is, indeed, before 7am, as I am accustomed to waking up this early as of late to work out. This trend may change later, principly with the start of Ramadan. I'll try a couple of days working out in the mornings, but I don't know how successful I'll be without being able to drink water while working out. At the same time, I don't exactly want to wait until after sundown to work out, either. Seems like I'd be really tired in the day...
I think I'll try to stick to morning, and just lower the intensity so I don't choke while working out. Maybe I'll drink a liter of water in the morning before I start my fast. Ramadan is starting sometime mid-September, so I should be getting myself prepared...
There is a prayer room in my dorm...and while I'm perfectly content praying in my room, they host a couple of group prayers for...Asr and Maghrib, I believe...I think...at any rate, I have to find out how to get to there and check it out.
I've met a few of the Muslims in my class...at least by name identification, there are five of us. As usual, we represent a range of...I guess, behaviors. There's Huma, who is the only hijabi (if I were still wearing mine, there would be two of us, but alas!). And then there's Arman...who hosted a beer and wine party in the Deanery after our first day of class.
And then there is me, who no one will recognize as Muslim until I start fasting. And you know what? It's okay that way. I've adopted this whole "whatever on people!" attitude such that...if people want to look at me differently because of my religion, I don't care, and if Muslims are hesitant to recognize me, I don't care.
"If you marry taxi driver/ I don't care..."
Yes.
I realized that it's silly. Am I working towards my own beliefs, what I believe is the best way for me to live out this life, or am I working towards the beliefs of others, to be accepted by them? They don't even know what the world is about, and I'm trying to conform to their reality. I think not.
But anyway, I am now in actual medical school. This is day three, I'm in group one, which means I'm learning how to take vital signs today. And! I get to work with the simulated patient, the mannequin that has vital signs. That's pretty exciting. The un-exciting part is that classes go every day until 4:30, except for BLS, which is a five-hour block class from 1-6. Next week, iA, I'll be doing case studies and then, on the final day, going to the hospital to shadow a doctor and interview my first patient, 2-on-1 (because we are paired before we talk to the patients).
These people are brave! They're being interviewed by students who know nothing! At least my group will have learned the basic details of patient interviews in vital signs today before going to the hospital in a week's time. I don't know what they expect from the patient interview...it won't be like we're taking a history for an appointment, I don't think. I think we'll just be asking about their background and their experience with care. Since I'm in children's hospital, maybe I'll be talking to parents and a child...I don't know.
So this is my life as it is now. I am white-coated (hehe), and I begin my actual science curriculum next week Friday, iA. It's like a Biochemistry/Cell and Molecular biology course, so it will be like, big time review for me, and in a more medical context. I think that is a nice way to ease us in...we won't have anatomy until October. So far, I really like the people in my class, and I've tried to spread myself about and get to know different people...we'll see how successful I am at that. We're a class of 201...125 New Pathway, 35 HSDM students (dental), 40 Health Science and Technology (HST) students...and somebody has an extra student. The NP and dental students take classes together for the first two years (the dental students have to take additional, dental-specific classes) and the HST have their own special classes for the first two years. Then, NP and HST reunite for clerkships while dental students do their own thing.
I'm going to set up a meeting with my society master at some point to talk about career choice. I think I want to get an MPH in the course of my training here (which means I'll actually be class of 2012, not 2011...but such is life). The way I am, though, I would love to take that time to do research for a year in one or two countries. I kind of want to travel everywhere. At any rate, I'm pretty sure I will be with this institution for five years, not just four. So will about half of my class that are not MD/PhD students...who will be here for a long time anyway.
So how to do you like that for an update, huh?  Now it's time for me to go work out...
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| So that's my update. Yep. March was decision month...I got into Columbia in the first week of March, and then two weeks later I got into Harvard, and two days later I got into UCSF...and then about a week after that, I withdrew from Penn after being waitlisted. I revisited Columbia, Harvard a week later, then UCSF two weeks after that. I had until today to figure out where I wanted to go. It was between the dream school (UCSF) and Harvard, and it was a really hard decision, but in a Rory-esque decision, I ended up deciding against the dream school and for the one that was a better fit, which was Harvard. And you'd best believe I'll be hopping a train some weekends, possibly staying with my friend Felicia who lives in Wash Heights, and hanging out in the city for a weekend. That's the second part of the update, hehe, pretty much what happened since this post. And so for a more natural entry...this was me a few days ago, before I made my decision, to slow things down a bit. I was chugging along, full speed, getting ready to press the button and make the decision, and then I slammed on the brakes...eerrrkk!
And then I stopped to think...how did I get here?
So I went back to the thing that I wrote back when I was barely a sophomore, just beginning my research project. It was called, "It Never Rains," and it was all about why I made UCSF my dream school...
And I must have gone back in time when I read it because I stopped reading it and immediately began freaking out. How did I get here?
I don't remember why I applied to the medical schools I applied to...all top tier schools, and Wayne and Northwestern (which is a really good school, but second tier). Why did I apply to these schools? Why did I turn down scholarships so that I had these two choices...Harvard and UCSF? How the hell did I get here?
...I know this is a question that I will repeat, whichever of these schools I end up attending, many many times...
And I don't know how I got here, actually. I got caught up in premed culture? I really believed that the sky was the limit for me, and that I could do anything I wanted to? It was the grace of God? Definitely had to be the latter, because for the girl who, on her darkest day of undergrad, called her friend up and told her she was going to slit her wrists...there had to be an intervention.
And it wasn't meds, and it wasn't therapy...
Intervention. My agent. I love my agent so much, I'm writing a story about him, and it's called, "Agent." Duh, right?
He probably never really wondered what was wrong with me, but I thought I was weird. I didn't want to get to know him because eventually he'd have to get to know me, too, and then he'd know how weird I was. Like, I can't get with this girl, she's crazy, she has this history of depression, and she used to be 200 pounds...no way, man...
I don't know. At least my teeth were straight and my breath smelled nice...
But I've totally digressed. How did I get from loving him to going to Harvard Medical School? Has this every happened to anyone else in the history of time? Have they had an agent, a single person who they wanted to be better for, and because of that person, they get to a place they hardly remember working for?
And here I am now, talking of MPHs and Global Health, and traveling back to the DR and to Brasil and practicing my Portuguese and learning Arabic and wondering how much I'll be prepared for residency at HMS versus UCSF and aaahhhhh!
I started college as not the type of person who could get into medical school, at all. I would be lucky to survive the four years. And now I'm graduating as almost the complete opposite. The complete opposite.
I want to thank my agent, but he doesn't know, and probably would be freaked out. Like, who the hell are you, after all of these years?
I miss him, and I miss that place I was...I was at a time of my life where I didn't mind the cold on my cheeks. I was at a place where it never rained, at least for me. And that's slipped away, and I guess it's okay, because that's not really life, then, is it?
I've got to get another Spinach. | | |
| Oi! E como vai? Tudo bom? Espero que sim!
So updates...updates on the whole medical school thing.
I have...four more schools to hear from. I'm waitlisted at Hopkins and UCSF deferred me until late April (aaaahhhh!) which is going to drive me crazy because it is up there amongst my top choices and could very well be the school I chose...if I get in.
Regardless, besides those two, I have three others that admit everyone at once to wait on for verdicts...
I'm really excited about still being in the running for UCSF. But man, competition is stiff...they only have so many spaces for out-of-state folks...
It also depends if I get into any of the Ivys...which reminds me, I am yet to send one of them my AP scores...they're at my house so I have to go back and do that this weekend.
And I have to send UCSF an update of my grades...and I'm like, good thing I got As last term, heh, instead of slacking off like I really really felt like doing...not for being lazy, but for being tired...
But I can't believe I got this far with them!
I know people taking a year off, and I'm wondering...should I have taken a year off? And then I think about my options if I had taken a year off...the only thing I'd really want to do is live in a Spanish-speaking country for a year...or split the time evenly between that and Brazil (since I am learning elementary Portuguese...mas, parece muito bom, não é?). But nahh, that's okay.
Besides that, my life is a complete mess. The state of my apartment could attest to this. The heat is finally back working, but only up to 64ºF. I wish it were 64ºF outside, actually...entonces, yo sería despuesta a pasar mis días enteros afuera...
It's so fun now that I get to play with three languages instead of two...and one, hehe, as it was before.
Anyway, I'm enjoying my creative writing class. I wrote a story called "Drinking Water" that was loosely (and not so loosely) based on my experience in the DR. I set it in Jarabacoa and Manabao because I cannot make up a fictional town in the DR, hehe, but besides that, all of the characters are created... Everyone in my creative writing class really enjoyed the story, and I was like, "Yay."
Yep. I was like, "Yay." I am not too articulate at the moment. I haven't been getting enough sleep.
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| Update! This is what has happened to me since I last updated... 1. I got into UofM medical school, making me three for three for medical schools so far... ...that's pretty much it. Hehe, I probably gained a pound or two, but besides that, life has been blessedly boring, if you know what I mean. Oh yeah, I guess other things... 2. Finished my Cell/Molecular Biology major...and I'm done with all of my graduation requirements. Two more Spanish classes to finish my major and I'm more than ready to graduate in April 2007, iA. Umm...my parents brought in the new year awesomely by having a major argument, in front of me, no less, this evening...which means I'm going to be more than eager to go back home (to my place) ASAP, because they are going to be insoportable from here on. Time was...like, earlier this year, I would have blamed myself for their marital issues...but seriously...I am just a manifestation of the issues that they had that they didn't resolve that they should have addressed before they got married, but whatever, they were different people...they have to deal with it now. But anyway...2007 may be bad news bears for my folks, but iA it will be okay for me, and I can move forward...and iA it'll be good for my brother as well. Take care, y'all... Oh yeah, bring in the new year with good music. If you like Spanish pop/rock, I recommend Reik...especially their 2005 album. Sin Bandera is also exceptional. For specific songs in this genre, I recommend La Secta Allstar, "La locura automatica," thought they're definitely more rock in general, outside of this song. Outside of pop/rock, my favorite songs are usually reggaeton or bachata...heh...this is what happens when you spend time in el caribe... Oh yeah, and I want to see that movie Freedom Writers even though it feels like the real-life version of Dangerous Minds or something...I will probably cough it up and see Pursuit of Happyness movie, although I was miffed that they couldn't find an actor who actually looked like the guy portrayed, but then was at peace with it when I realize that 1) it was Will Smith's project, and thus his self promotion, he and his son and 2) the story is better told than left, I suppose..> Dick Clark's voice/diction is fairly disturbing. Poor dude...strokes are no joke. | | |
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